Angels and Monkey Bars
by Hikari of the Moon
Summary: Even though people said they'd met in another life and in this one, Axel considered this their first meeting. No matter how much his leg hurt remembering it. For ChaosHarbor.


**Dedication: **For my friend ChaosHarbor, who is not only allowing me to beta two of her stories, which I consider a great honor since the fics rock so much, but who listens (or reads) when I rant and tells me exactly what I need to hear. And who writes some of the most amazing replies to my challenges!

I wrote this _before_ I broke my ankle at camp last Monday. Talk about irony.

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Kingdom Hearts.  
**Warning**: Shounen-Ai, that means guys in love with other guys. Don't like, don't read, and don't flame!

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Axel and Roxas always had a special time when they told people how they first met. 

It was special because some people, those with past lives like their own, would say it wasn't really the first time they'd met. But neither of them liked the idea that they were only in love now because their past lives had been in love. Roxas swore that this meeting wasn't really the first time they'd met in this life, but Axel couldn't remember any other time. But, he guessed that had to be true, since he didn't remember any time that they were together and didn't know each other.

If you asked Axel again in a few years to tell you when this story, it would be different. Memories warp and change, and his memory of that day had changed greatly. At first, he hadn't remembered Roxas at all, but when he heard that Roxas had been there, he forced himself to think harder, and after a few tries, he remembered Roxas. You might say it was a false memory, created by Axel's want to see him there, but Axel always said that even if it was false, he preferred this version.

It had been a normal day at first, that day so many years ago when they 'first' saw each other. Axel had been swinging on the monkey bars at the local park, just relaxing. He wasn't sitting on top of them or hanging from his legs. He was just holding on to them and swinging from one to another like you were supposed to.

Looking back, Axel thought it should've been more romantic when Fate brought him to his soulmate.

Roxas said it was definitely more memorable than any "Hello, how do you do" could ever have been.

Axel always replied, "Yeah, but did it have to hurt so much?"

Because on that day, Axel let go of the monkey bars, dropped down the foot of air that seperated his feet from the ground, and collasped, screaming for his dad.

Granted, he was only thirteen, but wasn't that too old to be yelling for your daddy when you got hurt?

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Roxas's first thoughts were, "Someone's yelling for his dad."

Nothing special when he heard the screaming of his future boyfriend.

But when the screaming continued, he looked up from his spot on the big rock at the edge of the lake and saw the red-headed teen for, supposedly, the first time in his life.

Axel would always regret that Roxas had seen him hunched over his newly-broken leg, screaming for his dad, and not as anything remotely sexy. Roxas would then say it was cute and it made him look vunerable. Axel would scream he didn't want to be vunerable and then Roxas would usually end up sleeping on the couch.

Roxas, that day so many years ago, had run over to join the crowd surrounding the weakened boy.

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Axel's dad had gotten Axel's sister's friend's dad to help with the task of making Axel limp to the car. It was painful even for him to stand up, but he did it with minimal screaming. Roxas and the rest of the crowd followed slowly, surrounding the trio like vultures around a dying animal.

Again, at this point in the story telling, Axel would complain. But not about the indignaty of limping to the car and then wincing and screaming when the adults tried to postion his broken leg into the front seat of the car. No, Axel would complain that since the park was so close to the hospital, he didn't get to ride in an ambulance.

Roxas would always hide his laugh at that. The couch was _very _uncomfortable.

At this point, sound got fuzzy in Axel's mind. He blamed it on the pain. He knew that his dad must've asked his sister's friend's dad to bring Kairi to the hospital later, so that their dad could stay with him. And he knew people must've been telling his dad that they hoped he was okay. Frankly, the only thing he knew hadn't changed from his original memory was the interior of his dad's car.

But this version of that day, the version that over the years he had convinced himself was true, had Roxas. His surroundings were fuzzy, just colours that looked like trees, the sky and some other people, but Roxas's younger brother and Roxas himself were sharp and in-focus. Almost unnaturally so.

He looked like an angel, mournfully sad he hadn't been able to save him from the pain.

Forget about any past lives. Forget the giant keys that haunted their dreams, the black bugs that slided along the floor, and the firey, spiky wheels that had once clashed against those giant keys in angry fights that only held to heartbreak. Ignore the fact that using the word 'heartbreak' felt..._wrong_ somehow. Even ignore the time when Roxas had yelled, "No one would miss me!" and they'd both suddenly fallen over, spending two weeks in the hopsital for a strange heart symptom that no doctor could crack. Forget all of that.

Looking back, Axel knew _that_ was the moment he fell in love with Roxas.

He just, you know, didn't realize it at the time because of his broken leg.

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(If you think how Axel broke his leg was unrealistic, and I'm guessing a few of you might, consider this. That's exactly what happened to me when I was eleven.) 

Well, I hope you enjoyed this fic! You know the drill: I beg you to review, most of you ignore it, but those nice few people actually do and make me smile and want to write more and more.


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